About 2.3 miles from the entrance station is a turnoff and parking area
at the south end of the Park Avenue trail (stop 2), which is about 1
mile long and ends at another parking area 1.7 miles farther north. An
interesting hike is best made from south to north in a downhill
direction, and hikers generally meet the cars of relatives or friends
awaiting them at the northern parking area. The trail begins in a canyon
cut in the soft Dewey Bridge Member and walled by high fins of the Slick
Rock Member (fig. 27), but farther north the canyon is floored by the
bare Navajo Sandstone. The avenue was named from the resemblance of the
east wall to a row of tall buildings. Atop the west wall, just to the
left of the view in figure 27, are two balanced rocks (fig. 28). The one
on the left, which resembles somewhat the head of an Egyptian queen, is
offset to the right along a bedding plane, and this offset may have been
caused by an earthquake.
As we progress toward Courthouse Towers proper, lofty fins and monoliths
lie mostly on our left, and to the right are fine distant views of the
La Sal Mountains (stop 4). A general view of the Courthouse Towers is
shown in figure 29, and closeups of two of the named rock sculptures—the
Three Gossips and Sheep Rock—are shown in figures 30 and 31. Just beyond
Sheep Rock, which some think resembles the Sphinx, we see “Baby Arch,”
shown in figure 15.
Five miles from the entrance station, the road crosses Courthouse Wash
on a modern bridge (stop 6)—a distinct improvement over the two tracks
in the sand we used in 1946. The Courthouse syncline, named after the
wash, extends northwestward through here. (See figs. 8, 9, 20.) About a
mile west of the bridge, Professor Stevens found another pothole arch. A
mile and a half north of the bridge is stop 7, where attention is called
in the booklet to the vast area of “petrified dunes” east of the road,
which are simply dunelike exposures of the crossbedded Navajo Sandstone
formed originally by the cementation of a vast area of sand dunes. My
view of these was taken about 1 mile beyond the stop (fig. 32).
[Illustration: BALANCED ROCKS ON SOUTH WALL OF PARK AVENUE, at south
end of trail. (Fig. 28)]
[Illustration: COURTHOUSE TOWERS, viewed to the northwest from point
on park road about three-fourths of a mile northeast of the south
end of Park Avenue trail. Sandstone towers are Slick Rock Member
resting on Dewey Bridge Member, which also forms foreground. Three
Gossips at upper left, Sheep Rock just beyond. The Organ and Tower
of Babel are on right. (Fig. 29)]
[Illustration: THE THREE GOSSIPS, shown at upper left of figure 29.
(Fig. 30)]
[Illustration: SHEEP ROCK, shown on center-left skyline in figure
29. (Fig. 31)]
West of the road between the petrified dunes and The Windows section,
the Entrada Sandstone, particularly the Dewey Bridge Member, has been
weathered into grotesque spires and pinnacles resembling the so-called
“hoodoos and goblins” in Goblin Valley State Park, just north of
Hanksville, Utah. Typical examples of “hoodoos and goblins” are shown in
figure 33 (near stop 8). It seems reasonable to assume that some of
these spires are the skeletal remains of former arch abutments. From
here may be seen North and South Windows and Turret Arch on the skyline
to the northeast (figs. 37-40).
[Illustration: PETRIFIED SAND DUNES, looking northeast from park
road 2.7 miles north of Courthouse Wash. The Navajo Sandstone was
once a huge sandpile of dunes laid down by winds during an arid
interval, so it is interesting to note that the irregularly
weathered sandstone once again resembles a pile of crossbedded
dunes. See also figure 35. (Fig. 32)]
[Illustration: “HOODOOS AND GOBLINS,” weathered from Dewey Bridge
Member, viewed northwest from park road about 2½ miles north of
Courthouse Wash. (Fig. 33)]